I fell through the floor into a place in between. My first reaction was laughter, because I already knew I was dreaming, and that where I fell from was supposed to be a cave hewn out of solid rock. So how could I fall through rock? Dream logic, I guess.
But here I was, just a few feet below the floor of my cavern. My other aspects leaned over the crumbling hole to inquire if anything was broken, and after establishing that I was okay, to laugh at my misfortune. If I were to stand, my head would be in the cavern. This half-room underneath not only did not feel like my cavern, but it felt disconnected from the very realm.
Their laughter faded into chuckles. Just out of sight in the half-room, beyond my feet, a gurgling sound started. My other aspects silenced and call their preferred weapons to themselves. I waved them to remain where they were.
“Hello?”
The gurgling shuddered into sounds that hurt my ears at first. The sounds smacked and wetly shifted into patterns that I recognized as words.
“HHhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiii.”
“Weaver. Come up. I don’t like this.” Tliltc extended a hand with meaning of grabbing me but [Cloaked] held her back.
“I know what this is. This has to happen.” [Cloaked] leaned kir head into the hole and looked towards the source of the unsettling sound. “Yes. This is long overdue. Weaver, stay if you will, leave if you will. We can not help you though. It’s best if you endure. We’ll watch for good measure, though!”
Great. Something moved beyond my sight. Pebbles were thrown about by the motion, some of them struck my bare feet.
“Nnnnooooo…… Ssssssooooorrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy.” A tendril of something darker than shadow and furry like mold came out of the darkness and started to brush the dirt off my feet. I saw the flash of something thorny and sharp and braced for what I was sure was the gift of multiple lacerations.
The touch of the thing tickled at first until it applied pressure. The texture was oozing, cold, sticky, and left the feeling of a thousand cobwebs being dragged across my skin. I clenched my jaw and held still.
I knew I was dreaming, but I still couldn’t ignore all the dust. I sneezed several times in a violent burst. The texture that was on my feet was now wiping my face. I opened my eyes.
“SHIT!” Before I could choose a response, I reacted. I jerked away from the hideous face and reached to pull myself away. It put another appendage between my head and the wall, softening what would have been a painful blow.
It started to pull away. I grabbed its appendage and pulled it close. “So. Um. Hello. How are you? Thank you for catching me like that.”
It lifted its head again. It smiled. Gods help me, it smiled. I heard Tliltc recoil from the opening while [Cloaked] only settled into a more comfortable position to watch from.
“HHhiiiiii.” It grinned, this time. It grinned and displayed as much expression as it could. I fought the urge to vomit and was glad my dream body did not have bowel movements. I forced myself to look the abomination, to study it, and to memorize each and every impossible feature about it.
I smiled.
“You look absolutely hideous to me. Let’s get that out of the way right now. Because until I get used to seeing you, I’m going to have a visceral reaction each time. So, either you are the embodiment of my nightmares, or you’re able to tap into my nightmares, because that is a very damn good game face you got there.”
It stopped smiling. I felt my heart ache in rejection. I knew the two were connected, but I wasn’t sure how.
“No, don’t stop smiling. Smile more. How else am I going to get used to you? Don’t hide from me, please. Now, where did you come from?”
It smiled warily. I reached out and touched the sticky face. Body hair animated and gently held my fingers in response. I realized my own face was feeling pressure on the cheek. As if someone was gently touching it. Once I got past the texture of the abomination’s skin, I noticed where my cheek was feeling the touches was where I was touching it.
“Oh. You’re me.”
It stopped smiling. My heart soured in fear. It pulled away and turned to crawl back into the shadows. As it did, the epiphany bloomed.
“You’re all the parts of me that I have rejected, or that I was forced to reject. You’re all the parts that [my family and their friends] told me was ugly about me. You’re the pieces I rejected twice as hard once I started to come into my own. You’re the filthy thoughts and the shed ideals. The broken dreams are at the bottom of the sea, but you are the ugliness I still carry inside. That ugliness that I can’t yet accept.”
It tried to make itself small as I spoke, but the problem with epiphanies is that they continue on regardless of the audience.
“Hey. Where are you going? I’d like to give you a hug, if you don’t mind.” It stopped and moved to look at me. At the glance, the urge to flee returned, but I swallowed it back down just as fast. “If you are me, and if you are those parts of me that have been unjustly rejected, then it is for the better of us both, that I embrace you as you are. You are every body hair I have cut or plucked out of shame. You are every pound of flesh I have wished I could cut off of me. You are the lack of length in my legs, and the backwards curve of my toenails. You are hideous because I never felt pretty. You are what I saw in the mirror for decades, and rejected with vehemence. You are everything unjustly rejected about me, and I think it’s time I stop that, don’t you think? It is going to take me time to get used to seeing you. Forgive me, I may even shriek. But I will be able to face you more and more as time goes. If you’ll give me the chance. Will you?”
The appendage that grabbed my leg was not as sticky nor as prickly as it was before. Instead of worrying about harm, I remarked that it would make a great tree climber. It pulled itself towards me, its form changing as it went.
A young girl was face to face with me. Her eyes were spirals of deep infectious puce and her mouth opened far too wide for a human. Her teeth alternated between savage little broken daggers and ambulatory greedy tendrils. Her straight and wiry hair smelled of lye and burnt flesh. Her skin was scarred by burns from head to crooked toes. “I will.”, she whispered. The tones of her voices were a half-step apart and irritated my band kid’s ear.
I thought they were beautiful.
I hugged her, this abomination that is me, and accepted all the things I have unjustly rejected about myself. “[Cloaked]. Tliltc. This is me, and there is none other. This is all the pieces I have pulled away from to try to be [perfect] to others. This is what they cut away from me with words and beatings. I have all of me, at last, and I will not let go.”
Above the hole, Tliltc merred her disapproval of the recovered aspect. [Cloaked] threw popcorn at her and remarked that reunions always make kir happy.
“You do realize that you won’t be able to drag Little Miss Rejection into the bright light of day. Not even here. She needs that pocket corner, because there is a hella lot more to her than you know, or remember. It’s only in the half places like this hole where you and her will be able to meet face to face. There must always be shadow, because humans always have some portion about themselves that they can’t bear to face in the light.”
As I got used to her texture, it bothered me less and less. When I lifted my head, I found the child was sitting in my lap with several unnatural arms wrapped around me for comfort. Exposure to more light from above did reveal details that made me very uncomfortable anew. “Yea. But. She’s here, [Cloaked]. She’s here and I’m willing to face those parts of me that she represents. And that counts for something, right?”
“Yea. That counts. A bit.”
She crawled off my lap and scampered back into the darker portions of the half place. I did not call after her, nor did I chase her. [Cloaked] reached into the hole. This time, I took kir hand.
“We’re going to have to get a portal set up for her to use, though. Having random holes around the place is really going to ruin the decor.”
Tliltc was quick to present me with a basin and cloth to wash off the child’s reeking slime. As I did, [Cloaked] smoothed over the hole and repaired the floor. “That won’t be a problem.”
It wasn’t until Tliltc announced I was safe for cohabitation again that I caught the undercurrent to kir words. “If that won’t be a problem, then what will?”
“Where you’re about to fall into.”
The ground opened up under me again, and this time I fell into something much more deeper. However, what happened is not for the public record.